“Use your gifts”
As his career unfolded, Burnley
became aware of a gift he had
for walking alongside people and
relating to them. After graduation,
he served as the program director for
Friendly Inn Settlement House (the
first settlement house in Cleveland
to have an interracial staff) for two
years and then as a probation officer
for juvenile offenders in Cuyahoga
County. He became acutely aware of
the inequities baked into the justice
system, the disparities in dispositions
and sentencing for minority youth,
and how money, or lack thereof, impacted
their outcomes.
He also began to sense a calling to
ministry he could not ignore. In 1986
he entered the Christian Theological
Seminary in Indianapolis, where he
earned a Master of Divinity. His ministry
work took him to the University of
Pennsylvania, first as an associate
director of a campus ministry, then as
a graduate student, earning a Ph.D. in
History of American Education.
Prominently displayed in his office
is a woven basket from one of his
travels to numerous African countries
that says, “Use Your Gifts.” It serves
as a reminder to Burnley “to continue
to give voice to the voiceless as a
historian, as a minister, as an educator.
This is my challenge, to give back and
to use my gift to help others to see
and be seen.”
62 SPRING 2022 | WWW.SHAKER.LIFE
Larry, Naima and Thulani Burnley were honored to meet African Anglican Archbishop
Desmond Tutu during one of many trips to South Africa and other African countries.
Those travels also led him to his wife Naima, an attorney, minister, and social
justice activist whom he met at the All-Africa Council of Churches conference in
Addis Ababa in 1997. He recalls, “We were supposed to go as a group to a jazz
club, but we were the only two who showed up. We spent the next several hours
pouring our hearts out to one another,” and the rest is history.
He and Naima have a 20-year-old son, Thulani, who has Down Syndrome.
He is also a talented percussionist, a compassionate natural helper, and loves
basketball. Burnley treasures downtime spent jamming on bass guitar with
Thulani on the drums.
While Burnley forged a bold path as the inaugural vice president of Diversity
and Inclusion at the University of Dayton, Naima used her skills as a former Legal
Services attorney to promote equity for persons with developmental disabilities in
their hometown of Centerville, Ohio. She also served on the Montgomery County
Board for Developmental Disabilities. She brings the same passion to that cause as
she did as an advocate for indigent persons, refugees, and racial justice.
Parenting Thulani has given Burnley an expansive view on equity. “Persons
with disabilities are among the most invisible and marginalized,” he says. “Any
institution that’s making a commitment to DEI must understand that inclusion
means everyone. I understand and resolutely affirm Shaker’s focus on Black
excellence. At the same time, we cannot allow that focus to result in our
unintentionally contributing to the marginalization of other persons, whether
by gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability, and we need to
understand the intersectionality there.”
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